Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D

POLAND . The Unofficial Guide

OlafThreads: 8 Posts: 1,369 Joined: Oct 29, 09 ♂	Edited by: Olaf Feb 26, 10, 14:12 #511
Wish I didn't stop learning it. No way, for me it was quite simple as long as (as in every language learning) you practise writing kanji and learn the rules. I sometimes felt it like "it's so simple that it's hard", as we have developed grammar rules and e.g mandarin has it different, simply said designed by a different architect.

FUZZYWICKETSThreads: 12 Posts: 1,997 Joined: Nov 3, 09 ♂	Feb 26, 10, 15:03 #512
Regarding Polish, I think what makes it, at the very least, seem horrendously difficult is the mountain you need to climb in the beginning. That's Polish in a nutshell. Polish gets easier and easier for me every day because I hit the books hard during my first year to learn the seemingly impossible case system. For most people, they never accomplish that.

♂

Edited by: marqoz Feb 26, 10, 15:26 #513

tonywob:

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

And what about
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
You don't need any q'marks, dots & commas and it's still a valid sentence.
What a buffalo!

OK, I give up with this:
Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranlägeningsmaterielunde rhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussioninläggförberedelsearbeten
And puzzle: what is the language of it?

MonastyrevThreads: - Posts: 4 Joined: Feb 26, 10 ♂	Feb 26, 10, 15:26 #514
Haha, the case system is not the only hard thing to learn ...

♂

Feb 26, 10, 15:43 #515

tonywob:

James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher. which means "It was the case that while John used 'had,' James used 'had had.' The teacher preferred 'had had.'"

You consider that artificially conceived sentence difficult?
I hope don't pretending you're a teacher of English.

There are 32 tenses (including conditionals) in the English language that are technically possible. Of those, 24 tenses are grammatically correct but only 3 to 5 are in daily use. In some areas of the US not tenses are used at all.

All these English tenses are simple jigs and only some of them (past and perfect) will pose an initial issue due to a small number (about 200) or irregular verbs.

About the only real difficulty, for some, is the application of individual tenses. That can be explained to a student with an average IQ in a day. The rest is just practice.

OlafThreads: 8 Posts: 1,369 Joined: Oct 29, 09 ♂	Edited by: Olaf Feb 26, 10, 15:43 #516
marqoz: Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranlägeningsmaterie lunde rhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussioninläggförberedelsearbeten And puzzle: what is the language of it? Swedish? If not then Norwegian or Danish, but I'm betting on Svenska. And what the heck it means? Does this make any sense? I recognize a caouple of words in it but still can't figure out the whole.

♂

Feb 26, 10, 15:56 #517

z_darius:

You consider that artificially conceived sentence difficult?
I hope don't pretending you're a teacher of English.

I didn't conceive this sentence and I would certainly never use it. It's an example of the somewhat chaotic verb system in English. I know from experience, i.e. being round lots of Poles learning English, that lots of them cannot grasp the different tenses, especially not in normal speech. If you're Polish and you can then congratulations :-)

Also, I'm certainly not a teacher, and I'm definitely not qualified to comment on English grammar. If anything, I know more about Polish grammar because I've studied it, I rarely think about the grammar in my own language unless my g/f asks me a question.

♂

Edited by: FUZZYWICKETS Feb 26, 10, 16:08 #518

s_darius wrote:

There are 32 tenses (including conditionals) in the English language that are technically possible. Of those, 24 tenses are grammatically correct but only 3 to 5 are in daily use. In some areas of the US not tenses are used at all.

3 to 5? no way.

I go.

I'm going.

I went.

I was going.

I have gone.

I've been going.

I will go.

I will be going.

I had gone.

There's 9, and I don't think an average day has gone by in my adult life not using all 9 of those.

delphiandomineThreads: 42 Posts: 9,954 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂ [Suspended]	Feb 26, 10, 16:29 #519
z_darius: In some areas of the US not tenses are used at all. A particular trait to America is the horrible way that they mix tenses in writing without rhyme or reason - and the worst thing is that it's practiced by educated people. (Seanus, ever tried teaching Scottish English grammar to people? For some reason, it seems to make sense to Poles)

Lyzko

Feb 26, 10, 17:00 #520

German may still have most other languages beat on sheer (yet completely logical!!) word compounding:-) Perhaps only Hungarian and Icelandic can match on word length alone, hence leaving Polish hopelessly in the dust:

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenswitwenrentenaenderungmoegl ichkeit = The possibility of changing the amount of retirement annuity for the widow of a captain for the Danube steamship company

WHHEEWW! Sounds almost as undigestible in English! The German DUDEN though even has this monster surpassed. It has to do with grants for the financially needy.-)

Don't ask me which word it is though. LOL

))))))

♂

Feb 26, 10, 19:52 #521

tonywob:

I didn't conceive this sentence and I would certainly never use it. It's an example of the somewhat chaotic verb system in English.

Since you had provided a link I realized you did not conceive the sentence.

It is an interesting example but I don't think it is indicative of any chaos in the English verb system. As stated before, the English tenses are simple jigs, with a minor complication posed by a small number of irregular verbs. Those occur in most languages. Incidentally, the general rule is that the most frequently used ones are the ones with the most irregular forms so these get taken care of pretty soon into the learning process.

In English, all tenses can presented in a nice and simple to understand tabular format taking no more than one legal size (about A4) page. Another page, perhaps two with irregular verb forms and all combination are covered. In some cases it would take at least a page to convey all forms of just one Polish verb - even with the meager number of tenses in Polish.

tonywob:

I know from experience, i.e. being round lots of Poles learning English, that lots of them cannot grasp the different tenses, especially not in normal speech. If you're Polish and you can then congratulations :-)

One of the issues with learning a foreign language is the purpose. A lot of people's needs are pretty limited. An occasional tourist to an English speaking country will get away with one tense and about 1000 words. It's not going to be pretty but sufficiently good for basic communication. Now, try to have that same small arsenal of Polish words.

When I first came to the US I could easily talk about ambiguities in the English language as it comes through the pages of great literary works in the English language but I was afraid to take a written driving test in New Jersey's DMV. The likes of Chaucer, Hemingway or TS Elliot wrote on the subject very sparingly, so rarely did I come across terms such a "turnpike" or "double yellow lines".

Someone working in the US or UK will need a varying degree of competency. A journalist reporting on the Royal Family will certainly be expected to be highly proficient, while a bricklayer will will easily get away with rock bottom basics.

Not all of us are Shakespeares, neither do we aspire to be. Who would the audience be?

I was taught Latin when I was in high school and then in one of Polish universities - 4 years altogether. Do I speak Latin? Hell, no! I will get through a text in Latin when I need to, sometimes with a help of a dictionary, and that's all I need in what I need it for.

FUZZYWICKETS:

There's 9, and I don't think an average day has gone by in my adult life not using all 9 of those.

I assume that you are somewhat more educated than an average American and as such you'll certainly go beyond the bare basics on a daily basis and I'd be surprised if the 9 would be the only tenses in your vocabulary. Heck, I use more.

Of the 9 tenses a few won't be used as frequently, which is not to say they are unknown to most native speakers. All of them are very clear as to their meaning, once you explain it to a learner. Non-native speakers will be often aware of the English tenses they won't use. After all, "I finish this book tomorrow" covenys the same idea as "I will have read that book tomorrow".

Also, difficulties in learning English, or any other language, clearly stem from the learner's linguistic background. As others mentioned before in this thread, some aspects of a language are easier to learn, others are much, much harder to be retained. English is nowhere as difficult to a foreigner as Polish or a number of other languages. English is much more forgiving when to comes to minor errors. Of course the definition of "minor" may be debatable, but I'd argue that what can be construed as a minor grammatical error in English could render and equivalent Polish sentence incomprehensible. In the sentence, where the minor issue of inflection was neglected, what does this sentence mean (spelling incorrect on purpose).

zosia lubić jasiek.

Anybody non-native speaker?

delphiandomine:

A particular trait to America is the horrible way that they mix tenses in writing without rhyme or reason - and the worst thing is that it's practiced by educated people.

On a daily basis American English is not that complex, but as for the "educated" people, things will depend on what the term is understood to be. Are we talking about a PhD in English Lit. or an undergrad in phys ed?

♂

Feb 26, 10, 20:12 #522

z_darius wrote:

Me? Avg. education. And of course I go beyond 9. I simply stated the basic ones to show that 3-5 is an awfully inaccurate estimation.

z_darius wrote:

English is nowhere as difficult to a foreigner as Polish

I couldn't agree more, but there are several people on this forum that won't agree with that statement.

z_darius wrote:

Of course the definition of "minor" may be debatable, but I'd argue that what can be construed as a minor grammatical error in English could render and equivalent Polish sentence incomprehensible.

you're dead on with that.

On a daily basis American English is not that complex

why? how is it less complex than Irish English, Scottish English, Australian English...?

♂

Feb 26, 10, 20:53 #523

FUZZYWICKETS:

why? how is it less complex than Irish English, Scottish English, Australian English...?

In their essential features all those variants are the same. In AmEng the actual usage of some complexities is being replaced replaced, or has already been replaced with other structures that allow to convey the same meaning. As an example, in the area of tenses, in AmEnglish the Present Perfect, while perfectly legitimate and understood by all, is increasingly replaced by Simple Past. Where ambiguities may arise and American speaker will throw in an auxiliary "just" as in I just completed the book.

In spoken language I find British intonation more challenging than the fairly flat American counterpart.

Lyzko

Feb 26, 10, 21:55 #524

It's really all a matter of what one means by 'difficult', for the umpteenth time! In order to speak English, American, British or Canadian, on or nearly on the level of an educated native English speaker, a great deal more effort is required than to coast by on a mere 'global' tourist level, which is how most non-English speaking natives communicate in the language.

Until the myth of English being 'easy' vs. Polish being 'hard' is debunked once and for all, the same meaningless shibboleths concerning what's good or bad Englsh will keep flying around this and other forums ad infinitum:-)

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Feb 26, 10, 21:57 #525
Exactly right, Lyzko. Even if one has criteria, what is difficult for one person is easy for another. The hardest doesn't have the required degree of objectivity to it.

♂

Edited by: marqoz Feb 26, 10, 23:40 #526

Olaf:

Swedish?

Bravo! Svenska indeed.

Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranlägeningsmaterielunde rhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussioninläggförberedelsearbeten means just:

Preparation work to participate in a discussion on the base material support maintenance system for the coast artillery flight simulator in Northern Baltic.

and in Polish:
Prace przygotowawcze do udziału w dyskusji nad systemem utrzymania wsparcia materialnego symulatora nadzoru z powietrza dla artylerii nadbrzeżnej Północnego Bałtyku.
And was the longest word (130 chars) in the world acc to Guiness Book of Records.

And what about:
Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterbeutelrattenlattengitterkofferattentä ter?

Jzyus	Feb 27, 10, 00:01 #527
No wonder that all swedish people are forced by their government to also speak perfect english

♂

Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Feb 27, 10, 00:28 #528

marqoz:

Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranlägeningsmaterie lunde rhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussioninläggförberedelsearbeten

This is just an artificial word that has been created by putting many words together. No one would ever use this kind of "word", if you can call it a word. You can make up a word that is twice as long if you want. But it's still not a genuine word, it's an unnatural combination of words.

SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13 Posts: 1,915 Joined: Feb 21, 09 ♂	Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Feb 27, 10, 00:50 #529
marqoz: Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterbeutelrattenlattengitterkofferat tentä ter? This doesn't mean anything at all. This is not a word or even a combination of words.

brienkinkelThreads: 3 Posts: 8 Joined: Dec 16, 08 ♂	Feb 27, 10, 01:37 #530
Polish is easy. Example: returning from the salt mines outside Krakow on a tourist bus, I sat in front of two young men from Australia. One asked the other, "How do you say 'thank you'?" The other replied, "Dziękują." The first asked, "How is it pronounced?" His friend replied, "Gin, like the drink, and queer...like yourself!" The whole bus laughed at that one.

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Feb 27, 10, 01:54 #531
Dziękują is they thank. Dziękuję is thank you. Nice story though.

Lyzko

Feb 27, 10, 14:18 #532

No wonder that all Swedish people are forced by their government to speak perfect English

'Afternoon there, Jyzus! Guess that's sort of like forcing the proverbial square peg into the traditional round hole; the fit ain't even near perfect:-))) LOL

I hate to puncture the balloon myth of Swedish English skill, but frankly, I've never found that the average Swede knows English any better than the average Pole, Spaniard, Turk or Japanese. It's just a lot more comforting to hear English mimicked with a slight British-style accent, than a Polish, Spanish or Turkish one: It doesn't mean the English is better, only on the surface more familiar sounding. Try getting below the surface, and the fluency often quickly disappears and degenerates into a sort of burlesque of vulgar Hollywoodesque slang, i.e. a poor imitation of the TV series "Baywatch", in which numerous hunky guys and their equally Amazon-like lady friends grunted their way inarticulately thoughout the show.

As the line in one of my favorite classics films goes (the boss cutting the office stud down to size) "You know Walter, you're not necessarily smarter than anyone else,.....just a little taller!")

Lyzko	Feb 27, 10, 16:44 #533
Seanus, in a number of languages the expression "Thank you!" is rendered by some form of 'I thank..../'I am thanking...', literally translated: Czech: Prosim! German: Danke! Polish: Dziękuję! Hungarian: Koszonom! etc....

MagdalenaThreads: 5 Posts: 1,389 Joined: Aug 15, 07 ♀	Feb 27, 10, 16:51 #534
Lyzko: Czech: Prosim! "Prosim" means "please" (as in "I request") Thank you is "děkuji" :-)

Lyzko	Feb 27, 10, 16:55 #535
Whoopsidaisy, Madziu! I really ought proofread my posts before sending them. However, 'dekuji' probably translates to "I thank", no? -:)-:)

Mleko	Feb 27, 10, 20:10 #536
I discovered that no polish people can correctly count:1 milk, 2 milks, 3 milks, 5 milks, 6 milks... etc Ask different poles, they will tell you different answers... it is so funny :))

Lyzko	Feb 27, 10, 20:31 #537
And this then spills over in English: "In town where I born, there is much woods and mountain and countrysides in Poland. I work hard and have many job, so many work and few moneys....."

delphiandomineThreads: 42 Posts: 9,954 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂ [Suspended]	Feb 27, 10, 23:48 #538
Mleko: I discovered that no polish people can correctly count:1 milk, 2 milks, 3 milks, 5 milks, 6 milks... etc Riiight Mark. It would seem that you can't count milk either ;)

♂

Feb 28, 10, 10:07 #539

SzwedwPolsce:

marqoz:
Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterbeutelrattenlattengitterkofferattentät er?
This doesn't mean anything at all.

You're right. I see you know German very well. It should be written according to some Germanists as:
Beutelrattenlattengitterkofferhottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentä ter

It's from Tuwim's book "Pegaz dęba" and is allegedly of Namibian origin, where you had had German-Hottentot cohabitation and means:
The killer of the Hottentot mother of a moron and stammerer, who was held in a weave box for kangaroos.

mafketisThreads: 17 Posts: 1,880 Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂	Feb 28, 10, 11:10 #540
Mleko: no polish people can correctly count:1 milk, 2 milks uh ..... who counts milk? other folks in your therapy group?

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